A common problem associated with repairing damaged file systems on storage devices is that known methods of repair are often slow and consume a considerable amount of resources. Known methods for repairing file systems rely on scanning the entire storage mechanism to identify and repair damaged sectors. For example, FIG. 1 depicts a prior art method for repairing a file system on a hard disk drive that was corrupted as a result of a power failure.
Corruption of sectors in this scenario typically stems from interruption of a writing operation on sectors of a disk drive. Upon a boot up of a computing system subsequent to a power failure, step 104, a repair utility would begin scanning the hard disk drive for defective sectors. The scan comprises examining each sector, step 108, to determine whether any of the sectors includes an error, step 112. Upon determination that a sector includes an error, the repair utility corrects the error, step 116, and continues to scan all sectors and repair errors until the last sector is reached. This process often requires several minutes to several hours to complete on large storage devices.